Free Warlord: Dervish by Tony Monchinski

to participate—and then, if you survive—you will be given a second chance…”
    Who is she ? Rudy had pressed.
    “…you’ll be assigned a new identity, given a place to live, a comfortable job. Everything in the past…”
    She’s no one , Jason had told the kid, she’s a ghost .
    “…will be in the past. Your other option…”
    Let me guess , Rudy so god-damned shrewd, she’s not your ex-wife, is she?
    “…your other option is to stay here, with him.”
    “Hello, Jason.” Dr. Kaku.
    No. She’s not.
    “Well, then, there it is, Jason…”
    Shannon Hoon died of a drug overdose in 1995.
    “…it’s your choice.”
    What you’re doing, old man …
    “Granted, it isn’t much of one.”
    … it just ain’t healthy …
    “But it’s still your choice.”
    … it just ain’t …
    “Your choice…”
    …sometimes… you just gotta let go .
    His legs were shaking and cramping.
    “Well…?”
    …sometimes…
    And Rudy must have told Mook all about it, about Jason trolling the internet looking at pictures of a woman who wasn’t his ex-wife, cyber stalking her.
    … you just gotta let go …
    God-dammit.
    “I’m in,” he growled.
    What do you fear the most , Aspen had asked him.
    Losing you, he’d told her.
    Awww, you’re too sweet . Too sweet, she’d told him, the woman who would break his heart.
    They’d held each other. She was warm.
    What about you, he asked her, what do you fear the most?
    I had a , she paused between her words, my cousin, uncomfortable recounting it. He closed the door , she shivered in his arms, remembering it, wouldn’t let me leave . Jason held her close and waited, let her tell it the way she wanted. He tried, I thought he was going to …
    Did he?
    …jason…
    No . Thank god, no .
    Thank god is right, Jason breathed a sigh of relief.
    … Jason …
    That’s what I fear the most , she’d said, that someone would do that to me, try to do that …
    Never.
    Somewhere in the distance the sound of a metal door protesting as it slid back.
    Never, he had promised her.
    “Jason!”
    He sat up on the cot, alert. “What is it?”
    “Listen to me—” the black guy in the cell next to his “—they’re coming for one of us.”
    “What do we do?”
    The clap-clap-clap of heels out in the passageway, drawing closer.
    “If you get out of here, find Chandra. Find her and tell her—”
    “I will!”
    “And you? Jason—you got anyone you want me to?”
    “My ex-wife…”
    Clap-clap-clap , echoing nearer.
    “…Susanne, her and the kids, she’ll…You know what? Just forget it. Forget it.”
    CLAP-CLAP-CLAP
    “Wait!” Jason cried out. “Wait! Who’s Chandra. And what do I tell her?”
    He’d never seen the two black-clad men standing outside his cell.
    “Come with us.”
    There was a buzz and the door to his prison opened. Jason looked around his cell one final time. The cot, the sink, the toilet, no more than six by eight. He stepped tentatively out into the passageway. He saw that his cell was the last one before the passage ended abruptly at a rock wall. In the opposite direction, it stretched off into the dark.
    “Come,” one of the two men prodded.
    Jason turned and followed the man, aware of the second guy behind him. He spied the steel bars of the cell set a yard away from his own, and as he walked past he gazed in, hoping to catch a glimpse of his neighbor, to wave goodbye to the man.
    The cell was empty.
    “Keep moving.”
    The light on the camera mounted to the wall flashed repeatedly.

Excerpt:
    SUMMARIZED RECORD OF TRIAL – ARTICLESESSION
    PROCEEDINGS OF A SPECIAL COURT-MARTIAL
    In the case of Carlos Aguilera, xxx-xx-xxxx,
    The military judge called the Articleto order at
    DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
    HEADQUARTERS,
    UNITED STATES
    COURT-MARTIAL CONVEGING ORDER
    NUMBER
    DIRECT EXAMINATION
    Yeah, I killed them. So what? What don’t you understand? You want to win this war? These wars? How theyou think we gonna do that? You think we’re gonna pump, what,